Opinion
Energy Star Rating for Enterprise Data Storage Servers Urgently Needed
By David Scott, CEO of 3PAR
For years, consumers have recognized that products bearing the Energy Star logo are more energy efficient. In 2009, the EPA set forth an Energy Star certification for data center servers. Data centers spend half their operating costs on power, consuming an estimated 1.5 percent of the nation’s total kilowatt hours of electrical output for an aggregate cost of US $5.5 trillion, according to US Energy Information Agency (EIA) figures published in 2008.
In northern California, utilities estimate that data centers consume more like 2.5 percent of the grid, or $834 million annually. However, the EPA’s Energy Star effort failed to include a major energy hog in corporate computing rooms: the data storage devices that consume some 37 percent of data center power costs (according to both IDC and Gartner) and require both software and hardware enhancements to improve energy efficiency.
That is, until now. After much industry input, the EPA has finally issued a preliminary standard for an Energy Star rating for enterprise storage and opened it for public comment, with plans to define a final standard by the end of 2010. We need to propel this Energy Star initiative for storage and stop neglecting the fact that our national obsession with digital data has made us power guzzlers.
Enterprise IT vendors have spent the past few years emphasizing the greater energy efficiency of their newest gear. The Energy Star initiative would put energy efficiency right up there on the management decision list – in a way that the Federal government is already doing with an Obama executive order on energy conservation that has spurred many Federal agencies into actually tasking management with “green IT scorecards.”
For example, currently available green storage technologies have already been proven to trim data center power requirements up to 75 percent. In fact, results like these have already spurred utilities such as PG&E and Austin Energy to offer incentives to commercial and industrial customers that deploy gear that uses energy-saving virtualization and thin provisioning technologies. For 3PAR customers, those energy savings are also combined with floor space savings – literally decreasing the customer’s physical footprint as well as its carbon footprint. The end result is less storage to house, power, cool, and maintain.
People don’t think of smarter IT equipment in the same breath as solar cells or electric cars, yet their potential cost savings is sizable and can be harnessed for state budgetary control. Using California as an example, if Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger mandated California businesses to overhaul their data centers – and assuming conservatively that Green IT could reduce data center power consumption by just fifty percent – businesses in California would achieve $417 million in energy savings alone, with follow-on benefits to corporate bottom lines and state taxes on corporate profits.
If other State leaders follow suit, the figure could jump an additional $2.2 trillion nationally, again assuming a 50 percent savings on non-California power use. While it is true that in order to achieve these savings, companies would have to purchase the new gear and therefore have a capital outlay at year 1, often these expenses pale in comparison to the operational expense savings achieved in years 2 through 5 of what is typically a 5-year investment. With enterprises refreshing their existing storage technology every 5 years on average, why not make energy-efficiency an important decision criteria in the purchasing process. An Energy Star rating would make this easier. And yes, more savings will be needed if California or any other state is to solve its fiscal woes, but it would be a start. As the Gulf oil drilling leak brings heightened awareness to the scarcity of fossil fuels and the fragility of our ecosystem, this would be one way to make sure that words do more than leak out into a choppy sea of public debate.
